Break Us in Two
by DarkestWolfx
Summary: Everything was taking too long, shaking, quaking: suffocating, crumbling. No one could understand, no one would ever understand how he felt connected. There were two lives suffering, not one. Spoilers for 'Up from the Depths, Part One' (S2E6) [19/11/16].


I felt so sad for Gordon… There is very little else I can say.

* * *

The warning chilled him to the bone, yet came too late.

There was very little he could do, as though his body had actually frozen into blocks of ice, as though his brain had shut down from lack of oxygen… like he was drowning, mouth agape for water to flood in, lungs unable to cope beneath the flood.

Lungs unable to cope with the suffocation… Thunderbird Four was just grabbed and squashed in like a used tin can. Grip scratching the paintwork, pressure crumbling all supports.

Joy had turned to despair in mere seconds. All was flipped on its head.

He'd thought it would be alright, he'd imagined there was a way out. He'd tried to stay bright, he'd tried to mask his worry with his humour. He'd tried to hope and he'd _tried_. Nothing… there was just nothing he could do. After all this time and he was useless, unable to save his ship, unable to help himself… …There should have been something he could do, however there just wasn't.

" _You're getting crushed."_

Crushed was one word for it. The feeling was too close for comfort, reaching closer in as though to phase through and grasp at his life organs.

He still wanted to believe there was a way, but there was no success without failure. He was surrounded, immobilised, beaten; strategically down, weapons out, under attack. He was imprisoned. Imprisoned in the blue deep he considered a second home. His last hope for a way out was gone, disabled in the depths.

If he ventured out, the waters would kill him. If he remained, the Mechanic would kill him. He was doomed either way, caught up in an insolvable equation of life and death, between the lie of safety and the lure of danger. It was decisively over, ended in a stream of failures and loss of life.

Dad taught him the way up from the deep. The salvation for the lost. Search for the last shred of home, the last light which will lead you up and hold on, hold on like it's a life line, a rope extended to you for that last shot to be made. Strength could be renewed, the tables flipped all in just seconds. There was no sun in the deep, the rays buried too far beneath, though they didn't mean the depths could find that sense of it. The light that would lead you home would always be there somewhere… Sometimes closer than you knew.

And there it was - Brains was a genius, Brains must practically predict the future.

But it didn't help. Thunderbird Four was suffering and there was nothing he could do save suffer too.

Everything was taking too long, shaking, quaking: suffocating, crumbling. No one could understand, no one would ever understand how _he_ felt connected. There were two lives suffering, not one and maybe that was something which could be understood by those who shared this task. Thunderbird Four, Gordon Tracy, both were part of something more, something more than two letters, something more than a reputation: legacy.

One man's legacy.

Which gave so much to them, gave so much to the world and saved so many. So why, oh why, could he not save himself? Why could he not escape? Break free? Why was he endlessly trapped on a sinking ship?

" _Well make a new door! But do it fast. You don't have long."_

The words didn't help him. He supposed they helped Virgil feel like he was aiding, contributing when really there was nothing the elder could do except gaze into the blue, stare deep down and wait in hope a dash of yellow would surface.

His task on the other hand was ever harder. So he left the ship in a slight state sometimes, he loved it regardless… he received no pleasure in cutting holes through the craftsmanship, in injuring the vessel further, in destroying something _that_ man built. That great man who fell constant victim to one foul enemy, the grand versus the ghastly, the sons fighting on for father to a new enemy of old origins… the story was an endless cycle. Never did he see Thunderbird Four's end this early.

It was painful to think back to every launch of the yellow craft, of all the rescues he'd pulled off, the lives he'd saved, the stunts, of every moment he'd spent in the driving seat, of the two weeks he'd spent living in it…

…Light beneath the ocean…

The silence was horrid for his family and it wasn't his intention to keep them in stunned suspense.

He needed the moment.

The shock and force of the blast had unbalanced him, sent him sprawling away into the arms of the ocean and the far edges of thought. Thunderbird four… no, it was more than simply material. As exceptional as the work of art was behind it lay more than just the screws and bolts which held it, the engines and fuels which propelled it. Without a pilot nowhere would it go. Without an incentive no way could the pilot be there. Incentive was never needed though: to rescue, to aid, to make their father proud, to continue his legacy – it was all so easy. There was no work, no struggle. There was only strength and memories in piloting the craft, a strange enjoyment and yearning pangs of unsung grief… For him there had been no other way to grieve.

There was putting on a suit and doing what dad had wanted, continuing his wish… now, was there even that?

They watched out for those they helped, they looked out for each other even more and always gaze their ships a meticulous eye. Should he not then have seen the stab in the back? Have been able to move quicker? Have been able to _rescue_?

' _I'm sorry, dad.'_

" _I'm here."_ It felt wrong to say. _"I'm okay. But Thunderbird Four's a little… beat up."_ There was no better words he could find. He tried to make himself sound 'okay', to sound like he really was alright.

His heart ached…

Two halves, just like people spoke of for the heart. It was a painstaking watch as in bursts and gasps mechanic claws snapped into two his beloved. _His_ gift. _His_ last memory of the greatest man he ever knew. In that incredible vessel lay his heart, his mind, his grief, a piece of his father… Colonel Jeff Tracy.

' _No…'_

His breath nearly caught, snagged and jagged.

He had no words as he saw the craft float, drop to the sandy bottom.

' _How could he?'_

His eyes narrowed to slits in uncontrolled anger. It was hardly unreasonable, it was certainly not sensible.

' _But, dad-'_

Dad would try to reason with him, tell him it wasn't worth it, that Thunderbird Four could ultimately be repaired, rebuilt, fixed anew, though never could he be. The facts didn't help. They were just words and what they offered hardly eased his pain.

His heart ached, inconsolably.

* * *

If anyone is looking for something to listen to, _Failure_ , Breaking Benjamin held a lot of meaning for me when I was writing this.


End file.
